I don't know the words
by rustyliver
Summary: A series of random Beca/Chloe ficlets I posted on Tumblr
1. Eyes

_The thing about Chloe is her eyes are really blue. So blue that Beca forgets to not laugh at a joke._

/

It wasn't even that funny. Amy made yet another bizarre claim about her life in Tasmania. She told them she invented the Q-tip.

"And all Tasmanian ears have always been clean from then on. Even the crocodiles."

Beca had heard much more amusing tales from her but Chloe laughed so hard that Beca couldn't help but laugh too.

/

_Or not join in on a teenage pop song sing along._

/

So she knows a Miley Cyrus song. Music is her life. She knows a lot of songs. Doesn't mean she thinks it's a work of a genius.

And maybe if Chloe is the one who is singing it, she'd play it on loop for weeks.

/

_Or not care about something dorky like making music with only her mouth._

/

Beca finds that after Chloe, not doing things takes a hell of a lot more energy than actually doing them.

So she resigns to Chloe's will.

/

_And maybe it's not just her eyes._

_It's the way she beams at every single thing._

/

It always makes Beca cringe. Chloe is too bright. Sometimes Beca feels like she might get blind from just looking at Chloe.

She managed to run away the first time and thought she'd be safe. But Chloe found her anyway.

And she hasn't been able to look away since then.

/

_It's the way she steps into Beca's personal space without a care in the world._

/

"Whoa," Beca blurted out one day. It's one of those days when she remembered how to act like herself before Chloe.

"Something wrong?" Chloe asked with a perfectly innocent face, her palms still on each side of Beca's hips.

And Beca explained to her about personal space and how she has it.

The space between Chloe's eyebrows crinkled telling Beca that she didn't get it.

Beca spread her arms and did a 360 turn. "Anywhere in the circle is my space which means I need a warning before anyone comes into it."

Chloe laughed but nodded. "Yeah, I think I get it."

Beca forgot to tell her that people also need to ask for permission to enter her personal space.

So Chloe continues invading her sacred walls. Only now, she announces, "I'm coming in!"

/

_It's the way she looks at Beca like some sort of a saviour for their group of misfits._

/

Beca can't remember the last time someone looks at her with so much hope. It scares her. If it was anyone else, she'd be at the other side of the country by now.

But it's Chloe.

She is like a vortex. Every time Beca is near Chloe, she gets pulled into songs she'd never thought she would like.

And each day, she feels the tug getting stronger.

She thinks she kind of likes it.

/

_It's not just the eyes. No. It's everything about Chloe._


	2. The Song

_Her hair, her hair falls perfectly without her trying_

Chloe knew that she's in trouble the moment Aubrey suggested the song.

Beca thinks it's silly. Chloe can tell from the way her eyebrows were raised. But she didn't say a word. She just turned to Chloe and asked if Chloe could take the lead because there's something more important to do right now than ridicule Aubrey's musical taste.

Imagine that, Beca Mitchell actually cares enough about something that she swallowed her sarcasm.

Chloe finds it…strange. She is used to Beca dragging her feet for just about everything.

/

"Probably not."

"But it will be fun!"

Then Chloe thought maybe fun wasn't a good enough reason for Beca to go out dancing with the Bellas.

"Just you know…dancing," Beca winced slightly, "not my thing. The idea of sweaty drunk people flailing their arms just…"

"You don't have to, you know."

"Then do what? Stand and watch?"

"I'll stand with you."

"And miss all the fun?"

Chloe smiled. "You're fun."

Beca chuckled. "I think you've been hanging out with the wrong Beca."

"I doubt it," Chloe said and looked around before leaning into Beca's ear. "But just in case," she whispered conspicuously, "maybe we should have a secret password to identify each other with."

Beca stiffened.

Chloe didn't think anything of it. Contrary to popular belief, she knew what personal space meant. And Beca was one of those people who guarded it like it was some precious diamond.

She knew but she couldn't help it sometimes.

"I think anyone could guess that," Beca said.

"Yeah, but they'll say it differently than you."

"How?"

"They won't be in as much pain as you."

Beca rolled her eyes. "I'll see you tonight," she mumbled almost inaudibly before she left.

And she did.

Chloe was trying to get the bartender's attention when someone whispered to her, "You look aca-mazing."

She turned and found Beca with her crooked smile and she was not at all mortified.

"Are you really Beca?" she asked.

Beca laughed. "I'm not. Come on," she took Chloe's arm.

"Now I'm worried."

"You should. I'm taking you to the mothership." She pulled Chloe towards the other Bellas on the dance floor.

/

But Chloe thinks it's a good kind of strange because maybe they're past the whole kicking and screaming phase so she could finally tell Beca…

No.

She reminds herself that she and Beca are not really singing love songs to each other. Maybe she is. But she's pretty sure Beca isn't.

Beca smiles as she is looking at Chloe.

And Chloe feels her heart breaking, knowing that the smile isn't what she wants it to mean.

But the song is everything she wants to say to Beca. All those beautiful things about her that she's so keen to hide. The way they make Chloe's stomach turn in the best possible way.

_Because you're amazing just the way you are_

She wants Beca to know no matter what.

She looks into Beca's eyes. And she thinks she sees something in those eyes. Something like a mix of hurt and sorrow.

_When I see your face, there's nothing that I would change_

She musters a smile. And she should sing it with a smile anyway because that's how Beca makes her feel. She'd be studying in the library or walking on some street or buying lunch and suddenly she'd notice someone looking at her weirdly. Then she'd realize that she was smiling.

Because she was thinking of Beca.

Beca makes her smile like an idiot at seemingly random times.

She nods before she realizes what she's doing.

Beca's eyebrows crinkle.

She nods again and puts all of her into the song. The fear and uncertainty all but gone.

Because Beca, for all her maybes, always shows up and Chloe thinks the reason might be her.

_Just a dream_

No, it's not.


	3. Blue

So let's talk about how blue Chloe's eyes are.

They're really blue. Like really really blue.

Beca has been staring at them for a good hour and there is no way they can be real. They're like the marble her father mailed to her for her fifteenth birthday except for the minor fact that she had been fifteen for five months by then. He had also included a two page letter in the packet explaining the history of the factory that made the marble and the step-by-step process of making it. She wrote him back saying he should consider sending the letter to the factory because it would make a really good brochure and scribbled a thank you at the end matching the 'happy birthday' footnote in his letter.

She actually thought the marble was pretty. So she kept it. And it was kind of nice to have something for her hand to play with when she was nervous. She used to have the bad habit of biting her nails when she was anxious and the marble helped a lot with that.

Like that time when she had her first piercing. And the first time she showed someone her mix. And her first kiss.

It had sort of become her lucky charm even though it had nothing to do with bringing her luck. Things had gone wrong in the presence of the marble. But it had this calming effect on her and it made her feel like she can do almost anything.

Almost.

They're sitting in a diner and Chloe is telling her about her favorite movies. And Beca is sat there actually listening to her go on and on about them and not trying to think of an excuse to leave. It's funny because five days ago, Jesse was telling her about his favorite movies and Beca actually attended a class so that she would have an excuse to leave the conversation.

"How about you?" Chloe asks. "What movies do you like?"

Beca has to take a second to answer because her head is still stuck on how impossibly blue Chloe's eyes are. You would think that someone who sees blue eyes in the mirror every day won't be so hypnotized by another pair of blue eyes.

They're just so, "blue."

"Blue? I've never heard of that movie."

Crap. She said that out loud, didn't she?

Her hand reaches into her pocket and finds a couple of coins and a candy wrapper. Then she remembers that her marble is in her other jacket that she put in a washer a few days ago and it's probably lost forever now. So her hand instinctively reaches for her mouth but she manages to stop her fingers from going into it and pulls her hand back down.

"Uh, yeah," she says. "It's this indie movie. No one's heard about it."

She hopes that will make Chloe stop asking about it because everyone has that one shitty movie they like and they insist it's a really good movie but no one knows about it because it's indie and it didn't get the publicity it deserved.

But it's Chloe. "We should watch it sometime."

"Yeah, I don't think they made a DVD of it."

"Don't worry," Chloe says. "I know a guy who can get you any movie you want."

Well, what's the worst that could happen? One hour and forty five minutes of watching an obscure movie with Chloe?

One hour and forty five minutes _with_ Chloe.

"Sure," Beca says. "If you can find it."

Then she immediately regrets it because she might have lost her lucky marble and that will be one hundred and five excruciating minutes of trying not to bite her nails next to Chloe.

Chloe's forehead creases. "What's wrong?"

And Beca is ready to confess that she's never watched a movie called Blue or any movie at all. What happened was she panicked because she didn't want Chloe to think that she's a weirdo for not watching movies so she picked her favorite color.

Blue.

The color of those eyes that are staring at her.

Those big blue eyes that make Beca feel like she's staring into a damned ocean.

And suddenly she feels a calm taking over her and a wave of courage that makes her think that she can do anything including lean towards Chloe and kiss her.

Which she does.

And when she pulls away, she sees Chloe looking confused but there's also a smile there.

"So it's a date then," Chloe says.

Yup, Chloe's eyes are definitely better than her lucky marble.


	4. Small

Beca is small.

So Chloe is pretty sure that she'll get a neck cramp if she leans her head on Beca's shoulder. Especially since they're sitting so close together that their shoulders are touching.

Their shoulders are touching.

And Beca's hand is inches away from Chloe's and Chloe thinks she should scoop that hand up because that's what people do on dates. But she can't because she's thinking about it and it turns out the harder you think about doing something, the harder it actually is to do it.

Chloe never thinks about these kinds of things. Things like holding someone's hand or hugging another person. They come naturally to her. She never thinks about whether it's appropriate or not because human contact makes everyone feel good.

She had always believed that until Beca kissed her in that diner that night. And she started having all these emotions and not just the good ones. Like the one that made her can't think about Beca without having this dumb smile on her face. (Aubrey had kindly informed her about it two days ago.)

And there is the…she didn't know what to call them exactly. Nerves? Anxiety? Insecurity?

Like right now, she can't stop thinking about how Beca isn't holding her hand. The girl kissed her for god's sake. And now she can't even hold her hand?

That's weird and suspicious and…well, it's a bit hurtful to be honest.

The movie is obviously more interesting than Chloe.

But then Chloe reminds herself that of course Beca is watching the movie instead of say, watching her because _they're watching the movie_.

What is wrong with her?

"Are you okay?"

Chloe immediately turns her gaze to the screen. "I'm fine."

"Are you sure?" Beca asks. "Because it felt like you were staring at me."

"Uh-huh."

"It's fine, I guess," Beca continues. "But it felt like an angry—look, I think that girl is telling the other girl that she likes her."

"Probably," Chloe mumbles.

The movie is in Japanese and it doesn't have subtitles but somehow it's gaining more of Beca's attention than her.

Chloe kind of feels like the girl on the screen who is hugging her knees and burying her face in them. And now the other girl is lifting up the crying girl's chin and then she kisses her.

"Holy shit!" Beca cries out. "I was right."

"I thought this is your favorite movie," Chloe mutters.

Beca immediately pauses the movie. She turns to Chloe. "Okay, something is definitely wrong."

Chloe doesn't reply. She continues staring at the screen.

"I mean, yeah, I might have told a little lie," Beca says. It's coming, Chloe thinks. Whatever _it_ is that she's so afraid of. "I don't watch a lot of movies and I couldn't think of one at the top of my head so I made one up." What? "I was a little preoccupied with…" Beca hesitates.

"What?" Chloe asks, finally turning to face Beca.

"You," Beca shifts her eyes downwards.

And Chloe finally gets it. She is feeling the way Beca is feeling right now.

Vulnerable.

People have always liked her. It has always been easy for her to make friends or boyfriends or girlfriends. But Beca, Beca doesn't like anything or anyone.

Except maybe for music. The way her eyes twinkle whenever she's working on a mix. And when she's singing. Like in the shower that one time. Even with the Bellas. She tries as she might not to let it show. But her lips always crook upwards in that hesitant way until she completely forgets about how she thinks making music with only her mouth is lame.

Chloe wants Beca to look at her that way. She wants it so much that she forgets how Beca turns her gaze away when she sees something she likes. Then she pretends not to care while slowly creeping towards it.

"I think you broke me," Chloe tells her.

Beca looks up, blinking uncertainly.

"You broke me and you need to fix it."

Despite her epiphany, Chloe still can't move any part of her body closer to Beca.

Beca looks a little like a scared puppy now and if Chloe isn't as scared as her, she would probably find it funny.

"You need to kiss me," Chloe says.

Beca chuckles. "I thought…" she trails off and does as she was told.

"Better?" she asks when she pulls away.

"Not yet," Chloe murmurs.

Then Chloe leans in and kisses her.

"Now I'm fixed," she says after.

When Beca plays the movie again, Chloe puts her arm around Beca and Beca leans against her shoulder.

Problem solved.


	5. The Kid Whisperer

Chloe is not good with kids. She just doesn't get them. When she smiles, the kid stares. When she stares, the kid smiles. Then the kid gets distracted with something shinier than her and she's just happy that the kid's parent is not shouting at her for being creepy.

But Beca, surprisingly, is.

It's her first time meeting Ben and they are already best friends. Ben is proudly showing her that he can stack blocks and she watches patiently. Whenever he looks at her, she would smile and nod encouragingly. Then he would pick up the next block and place it carefully on top of his masterpiece instead of destroying it like he usually does when he plays with Chloe.

She ought to be jealous because Ben is her nephew so by default, he should like her more than Beca but she is entirely too charmed by this Beca, who doesn't glare at the person who is trying to impress her, to care about something small like that.

She feels a smile tugging at the corner of her lips but then Beca looks her way so she quickly hides it and mouths 'sorry'.

Beca shrugs.

Chloe is supposed to be helping her study for a philosophy test but just as they were about to get started, Chloe's sister called and started babbling furiously about how her husband got stabbed while trying to break up a fight between neighbors.

"I told him he should quit being a cop but he doesn't listen. We have a son, for christ's sake!"

"Oh my god," Chloe had cried out into her phone and Beca immediately slid closer towards her, her hand rested on Chloe's lap. "Is Sam okay?"

"He's fine," Janey had muttered, her tone was between relief and frustration. "But he needs to stay in the hospital for the night. Can you look after Ben tonight?"

"Of course," she said without thinking, only remembering about her study session with Beca after she had agreed to Janey's request. But when she turned to Beca, Beca just patted her knee reassuringly.

"I could come with you," Beca had offered after Chloe had explained everything to her. "Your nephew should have gone to sleep by nine and we could like study after if you feel up to it."

"That's really nice," Chloe had said, "but Ben doesn't sleep until after eleven."

That was when Beca confessed that she likes kids and it will be a bonus to babysit Ben while accompanying Chloe.

Chloe thought Beca was just being polite but it turns out she was telling the truth.

She got Ben to finish his slightly bent tower which Chloe thought was an impossible feat before tonight. And now she's whispering something to his ear while he listens with crooked eyebrows. Chloe has only ever seen that face when Janey is reading a story to him.

Then he exclaims, "Weee!"

"No," Beca says. "It's Auntie Chloe. Chlo…" Ben imitates her. Wee…" Again, Ben follows.

But when she repeats Chloe's whole name, Ben squeals, "Weee!"

"He's a lost cause," Chloe tells her, joining them on the floor. "He calls everyone by the last syllable of their name. Watch this. Ben," Chloe points to Beca. "That's Beca—"

"Ca!" Ben already interrupts.

Beca laughs. "You're a funny little man, aren't you?" she ruffles Ben's hair.

Instead of slapping her hand away, Ben crawls into her lap.

Maybe Chloe's a little jealous but with Ben; to be able to break into Beca's personal bubble like that without her wincing away.

But it's also very cute.

Chloe finally lets out the smile she's been holding in.

Beca notices. "What?"

"It's kind of magical," Chloe says as Ben panics when she pretends to reach for him, "to see two people who can't stand being touched get along so well."

"Yeah, we make exceptions for kindred spirits," Beca says, grinning at Ben. "And," she adds, turning her gaze to Chloe, "people we really like."


	6. Bug

You are bigger, she repeats to herself. It's small. So small. You can kill it by just stepping on it.

(But Chloe doesn't want that because it will be gross and no one wants to clean that up.)

"Crazy idea," she's suggested this about seventy times already. "How about we get ourselves a nice can of insecticide and—"

"No!" Chloe cries out immediately. "Those things are harmful to the environment."

So are cockroaches. They're called pests for a reason. But Beca knows what Chloe is going to say. She'll say that at least they are a part of nature and insecticides aren't.

The other option is to tell Chloe that she is as afraid of the damned thing as her. But then Chloe will run to Aubrey and Aubrey will know that Beca is afraid of something that is the size of her toe. Aubrey will never let her live that down. Unless, Aubrey is afraid of cockroaches too.

She doesn't even get to weigh the risks when Chloe screams, "Beca! It's there!"

"Where?"

"There!" Chloe points to Beca's feet.

The next thing she knows, she is standing on the kitchen table. Chloe, suprisingly, isn't.

She pretends to check the lightbulb. "All good," she says.

Of course, Chloe isn't fooled. "You know that I love you, right?" she asks.

"Uh-huh," Beca nods.

"And I'll love you even if you're afraid of tiny bugs?"

"I know," Beca says meekly.

"I'll just call Aubrey. She can take care of it," Chloe says, reaching for her phone on the kitchen counter. "They used to call her the exterminator back in freshman year." But then she puts the phone back on the counter. "This is not about being my macho protector, is it?"

Chloe does this sometimes; read Beca's mind. Beca has no idea how she does it. Beca can't do it. Actually, Beca doesn't have to do it because Chloe is an open book. She tells Beca every minute detail of her day. Like how the receptionist took all day to replace the toner for the printer. What each of her coworker ate for lunch. All the lame jokes her boss told the office.

That's how they work. Chloe overshares until Beca finds a way to shut her up, or make her louder. It depends on the day. And Beca undershares until Chloe tells her how she feels and she has to admit to all of it.

Like now.

"You don't want Aubrey to know."

"Just imagine this," Beca says. "Every conversation we have with Aubrey for the next twenty years will start with, do you remember that one time I had to save you from a teeny tiny insect?"

Chloe shakes her head. "She wouldn't do that."

Beca responds with a hard stare.

"Fine," Chloe says eventually. "She will be insufferable but we can't have a cockroach in our house. It will breed and there will be more of it in a week and before you know it, there will be baby roaches crawling all over our stuff. What do we do then?"

"Call pest control?"

"No."

"Because of the environment?"

"That, and I don't want to have baby roaches on my anything."

"Fine," Beca sighs. "Call Aubrey."

But Chloe doesn't pick her phone up. She leans her back against the counter.

"How about this?" she says. "You go to the studio tomorrow, work until late. I'll tell her that you have a very important meeting with a client and I don't want to disturb you. She doesn't have to know about all this."

"Sounds like a solid plan," Beca nods.

Chloe smiles. "Now, why don't you come down?"

"Are you really sure it's gone?"

"Babe," Chloe chuckles, "it wasn't even here. I think I saw it go into the living room."

"What?!" Beca cries out. "Call Aubrey, now! If it can go into the living room, it can go into our bedroom."

She figures twenty years of shame is nothing compared to waking up with a cockroach in her bed tomorrow.


	7. Picture

You don't really think about what the picture means. To be honest, you barely remember having it taken. You were a little distracted with something else at the time.

Then it disappeared, both in its digital and print forms, and you forgot about it.

You never really thought about how weird it was that it vanished from all the Bellas' computers at about the same time. In fact, you would never even have noticed it if Ashley hadn't brought it to your attention.

So when you found it underneath your bed, you immediately called for Beca who was packing your books in a box. It is an exciting thought — you are the one who finally found the lost picture — so you don't think about the forlorn look you have in the picture.

You only remember when you follow Beca's eyes to your face. You weren't looking at the camera. You were looking somewhere else. Then all of it came back to you like it happened yesterday.

You were looking at Beca who was stuck to Jesse's side. You could have sworn that those two were superglued together because when Benji offered to commemorate the Bellas' victory, Beca didn't appear until his third snap.

But that should be your problem, not Beca's. You are the one who is supposed to be looking at the picture like it is a picture of a pet you lost some time ago.

You're pretty sure you are but the weird thing is, Beca is too.

"I broke up with Jesse," she says.

That must be it. It reminded her of their first kiss and now she is missing him.

You apologize. "I know it was an important day for the two of you," you say as you take the picture away from her. You look around the room for a while. Then you tell her, "There's not much left to do. I can finish up on my own."

It's a lie, for her benefit and yours. You know she's not very fond of showing emotions in front of another person. And you can't be in the same room as her while she pines over someone else.

But Beca doesn't rise from your bed. She continues staring at her hands like the picture is still in them.

"I broke up with Jesse," she says again.

It hurts you to see how much she is hurting. So you forget about kicking her out of the room and you take her hands in yours. That's the only way you know how to make people feel better.

You know it doesn't always work with her. So it doesn't surprise you when she flinches.

But when you take your hands away, she takes them back.

"_I_ broke up with Jesse," she repeats. This time, she looks at you. She only takes her eyes off you to glance at the picture which you have tossed on top of the pile of clothes you're thinking of donating. "It could never work. I was only with him because I was afraid."

"What…" the rest of that sentence is stuck somewhere in your throat because you're starting to feel hope growing inside you and you don't want that. You take a deep breath before you try again, "What are you afraid of?"

She is having as hard a time as you to voice out simple words.

When she finally does, you simultaneously want to hug her and smack her head.

Hug her because you're one of the most harmless creatures on Earth, at least according to Aubrey. So there is no reason to fear you. And smack her because she let her fear made you wait this long.

But you end up kissing her instead.


	8. Touch

You don't like to be touched. It's not a big deal. You're pretty sure there's at least one culture somewhere out there that considers the touching of skins between two people as unacceptable.

It leaves a bad taste in your mouth. It tenses you up. It makes you want to shrink.

So, in the spectrum of physical contact approval, there's people like you on one end, and on the other end, there's her.

She likes to touch. When she's speaking to someone, her hand playfully slaps a shoulder or takes another hand or she just lets herself hang on to one of the person's appendages.

When she does that to you, you taste whatever fruity shampoo she uses and every muscle in your body relaxes. You still feel small, but that's only because you're already a small person. But even so, the way she hangs on to you as you 'reluctantly' drag her along some corridor or some street makes you feel a little bigger.

So you let her touch you.

It's not a big deal. She's like the hug box. You're pretty sure the warmth and the fuzzy feeling in your stomach and the skin tingling are all standard effects of Chloe Beale's touch.

You asked Stacie once, and she said, "It feels like every other hug I've had."

"But surely not all," Amy interjected, waggling her eyebrows suggestively.

"Hmm," Stacie hummed, or moaned. "It does get a little wet downstairs when Chloe hugs me."

You exclaimed, "Dear god!" and left your friends to discuss how high she can push everyone on the Kinsey scale.

She's a beautiful girl. The desire for her touch is completely natural. You sometimes want to touch Luke's abs just to know how they feel like, even though you think he's a grade A douche.

It's not a big deal.

It can't be a big deal.

Because she has her arm around some guy's arm across the quad, just like she did with you three days ago, but the guy is bigger and taller than you, so it doesn't look like he is awkwardly dragging her.

Her touches aren't exclusive to you.

So, when she sees you and runs to you and tackles you to the ground, you repeat to yourself like a mantra;

It's not a big deal.


	9. Anti-D

There's a song in her head. Always.

It's funny, because she hates movies, but her life is basically one, what with the constant soundtrack playing in the background of her life.

That's why she wears her headphones all the time, even if her playlist has run out and nothing is actually playing in her ears. It's an effective repellant for those who are likely to disturb her songs.

Except for Chloe.

Chloe doesn't care about her headphones. Chloe just pulls them off her and starts chattering, and well, Beca doesn't mind it, because Chloe is music all on her own.

She radiates it, with her smile, the little wrinkle between her eyebrows when she's thinking, her words, her big blue disney princess eyes, when she's angry (oh, the fury of Chloe Beale is not something you'd want to incur, even Aubrey quivers under her piercing glare), her tears,

and the tiredness which makes her hide underneath the darkness of her room.

Chloe disappears sometimes. She doesn't go to rehearsals, her classes, and Beca doesn't run into her during her noon walk across the quad with a new eye candy in her arm.

When Beca asks Aubrey about it, Aubrey tells her to mind her own business.

Beca notices it the third time when she knocks on Chloe's dorm room. It's quiet, and no one answers, but Beca knows that Chloe is in there. She is not a big believer of the supernatural, but Chloe makes the impossible possible, and one of them might just be awarding Beca with a third eye for her presence.

The second time Beca's knock goes unanswered, she slips a note with the titles of her happy songs, and the third time, she slips a CD with those songs in it.

The fourth time, she slips a note that says, "I'm here", and sits by Chloe's door until the R.A. wakes her up and asks her what she is doing there. It makes her feel like Chloe-in-the-shower level of creepy, so she leaves.

But the next time it happens, she does the same thing. After two hours, she gets a text from Chloe that says, "the door is unlocked".

She opens the door to find a dark room with the curtains drawn, and Chloe covered by her comforter.

"Hi," she whispers as she slowly approaches Chloe's bed. "Am I bothering you? Because I can leave."

She gets another text.

"Stay."

So she sits by the bed until the next morning, when she finds Chloe in her lap, holding her hand.


End file.
